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Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Female felons swell ranks among Mexican criminals

Eunice Ramirez, 19, modeled by day, working as a hostess at corporate functions, sporting events and political rallies.
On the side, the Ciudad Juárez native was alleged to have moonlighted in a kidnapping gang, luring unsuspecting men into abductions, until her Oct. 27 arrest.

The model-turned-accused kidnapper is but one example of the growing number of women swelling the ranks of criminal groups and participating in illegal activities in Mexico, where a crackdown on drug cartels and organized crime has claimed more than 28,000 lives since December 2006.

Ramirez's arrest highlights a shift in the relationship between women and criminal groups; women now participate in kidnappings, extortion and even hits. And their roles go beyond simply being mixed up with the wrong crowd — as was alleged to have happened with a raven-haired beauty queen, Laura Zuniga, who was arrested in December 2008 with a posse of cartel toughs. (She was released five weeks later.)

The National Women's Institute (Inmujeres) reported a 400% increase in the number of women imprisoned for federal crimes — mainly drugs and guns — over the past three years. Inmujeres put the number of women incarcerated for federal crimes at 4,292. The reasons for women meddling in organized crime remain a matter of dispute. Mexico City human rights lawyer Luis Jorge de la Pena estimates 40% of the females convicted for drug crimes were coerced by their boyfriends or husbands to either transport contraband between cities or smuggle drugs into prisons.

"Normally, there are cases of women knowing what their husbands have done, but they are convicted as accomplices for not denouncing them," he said.

Some women have ascended to the top echelons of criminal organizations, although such instances are rare. Sandra Avila Belran — "Queen of the Pacific" — gained notoriety for her luxurious lifestyle and role as an alleged key go-between for Mexican and Colombian cartels before her 2007 arrest.

The Public Security Secretariat released a video over the summer showing a presumed member of La Linea, the armed-wing of the Juárez Cartel, explaining how his gang recruited "good-looking girls to deceive their enemies."

Some experts say women are willing participants because they see the cartels as a way to lift themselves out of poverty in a country where good jobs are scarce.

Gustavo de la Rosa Hickerson, Chihuahua state human rights commission ombudsman in Ciudad Juárez, cited another reason: Cartels have increasingly been arming street gangs and using them to deal drugs and carry out hits. These local gangs often have female members.

Journalist Malcolm Beith, author of the book The Last Narco, about Mexico's drug war, said the trend began in 2008 when "a group of narcos decided to take it one step further, break the old rules (of not attacking women and children) and up the ante."

Eunice Ramirez's family suffered reprisals last month, when assailants tossed Molotov cocktails at her home, injuring her mother and badly burning three children under age 10 — including her daughter.

The assailants, self-identified as La Linea members, scrawled graffiti as the house burned, reading, "For pigs."

3 comments:

Mexico has had a place in the proverbial American mindset as having always been a lawless country. From politicians to the drug trade and all its violence. This image has been enhanced even further by illegal immigrants constantly trying to jump ahead of other legal immigrants in getting to this country as shown on our newscasts every night in the U.S. A great deal of the drug seizures can be traced to Mexican nationals. Sure there are drug gangs of other races and nationality- but right now it is predominantly mexican. All of this leads to apathy on the American part. Why should the U.S. really want to take serious mexicos problems? Mexicans need to someday take the rule of law seriously and join the ranks of highly developed nations.

@10:01 AMThe US should want to take Mexico's problems seriously because it's happening in the US backyard and several of its citizens have perished. Not to mention it would be humanitarian thing to do, they did it for the middle east.

As far as those "jumping ahead to migrate illegally", if you had to choose between doing that or staying because the system makes it virtually impossible unless you have money and an education or an established immediate family member to petition you, I wonder just what your take would be.